I don't recall seeing any television during my 1970's seminary years when Upstairs Downstairs was all the rage. So during these covid stay-at-home days, I'm catching up with that hugely popular series. It is indeed excellent television. One scene in Episode 13 of the Fourth Series (Peace Out of Pain) seemed especially relevant for today. The lady of the house, Hazel Bellamy, is dying of the Spanish Flu. Here is a picture from the episode in which she, aware that death is near, reflects with her husband, James Bellamy.
Dr. Foley has been called and paid a number of home visits. When hope is cleary waning, the anxious servants commiserate around their downstairs table. One maid reveals that after Dr. Foley's most recent visit he arranged for the road outside the Bellamy London residence (165 Eaton Place) to be covered with straw, to muffle the sound of passing automobiles. I thought, what an amazing presence of mind, and then to bother about having the road covered so the patient upstairs would have a quieter space. And during our own pandemic so many people in this country refuse even to wear a mask for the benefit of the others. The selfishness is profound. We do indeed live in a different time, of different value, a different world.
In the neighborhood here a young girl has painted rocks with bright colors and words to live by these days. I'm borrowing some of her words and adding my own for a New Years wish:
In the New Year may we choose kindness, courtesy, knowledge, respect.
In the New Year may we choose inclusion, listening, gratitude, sympathy.
In the New Year may we choose recovery, decency, generosity, joy.
In the New Year may we choose compassion, life, cooperation, thinking.
In the New Year may we choose belief, hope, awareness, spirit.
In the New Year may we choose interiority, justice, patience, simplicity.
In the New Year may we choose non-violence, presence, willingness, humility.
